Two-year anniversaries can be a vulnerable time for marriage, and so it goes with Wall Street reform.

Two years after passage of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, consumers are still waiting for many of their promised protections. Meanwhile, critics are talking boldly about scaling it back.

Where does all that leave retirement savers? Partly in the waiting room, but armed with a few new useful tools, observers said.

A key part of the law — one that gives the Securities and Exchange Commission the authority to impose a fiduciary standard of customer care on securities brokers who provide advice — hasn't been put into action.

Of the 398 rule-making requirements called for, just 123 (or about 31 percent) had been completed recently, according to law firm Davis Polk, which has been tracking the legislation in progress reports and social media.

Even so, there has been progress on some pieces of the law affecting investors and seniors:

Beat cops

State regulators are starting to examine about 2,400 more investment advisers who previously were under the eye of the SEC (generally those with $25million to $100million under management), and state regulators' exam frequency is significantly higher than the federal agency's rate, said Jack Herstein, president of the North American Securities Administrators Association and assistant director of Nebraska's state securities department.

And recently, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (created under the new law) issued its first sanctions, totaling about $140million in customer refunds and $25million in penalties against Capital One Financial after a review of its credit card marketing practices.

Senior focus

Meanwhile, Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey III, son of the former vice president, is leading a new office within the CFPB focusing on older Americans.

In an interview, Humphrey said his office will study and report to Congress on the myriad, confusing array of "senior" designations used by people hawking retirement planning skills and services. The office will also focus on senior investment fraud, said Humphrey, a former Minnesota attorney general. Recently, the office helped issue a report on reverse mortgages.

Your 401(k)

New information required under Dodd-Frank about 401(k) fees is being sent to retirement savers, and more specific detail about what individuals are paying will show up in November.

Already, there's an ocean of skepticism about whether you'll read these disclosures. Do yourself a favor and prove the skeptics wrong.

Pension investments

In January, regulators scaled back part of the legislation that was originally designed to protect pension plans using financial derivatives after plans themselves expressed fears that the rules would make it difficult to hedge their portfolio risk.

In a 4-1 ruling, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission loosened requirements that banks selling swaps to pension funds and municipalities had to act in their customers' best interest.

A broader CFTC vote in July regarding derivative regulation in general has the potential to help pension plans, and by extension, pensioners, said Dennis Kelleher, chief executive of Better Markets Inc., an investor advocacy group formed in 2010.

"Pension funds took a huge hit in the financial crisis," Kelleher said. Moving more over-the-counter derivatives to a regulated clearinghouse should avoid a repeat and lower costs because of price transparency, he said.

Many industry observers differ and are continuing to fight Dodd-Frank reforms, saying they are costly and duplicative.

Lashing out at the law's detractors in congressional testimony last month, Kelleher implored lawmakers not to be distracted by industry claims that it is onerous regulation, not the fallout from the massive financial collapse, keeping the economy down.